


Make Me Bleed

by EvilTwin13



Series: Make Me [4]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Grief/Mourning, Heartbreak, I cried writing this, Mental Anguish, Mental Breakdown, Multi, Please Don't Hate Me, Post Destiny, This is not happy at all, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2017-12-30
Packaged: 2019-02-24 06:50:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13208277
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EvilTwin13/pseuds/EvilTwin13
Summary: Mick and Caitlin have to deal with the aftermath of Lenny's death





	Make Me Bleed

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It couldn’t be real. They never should have been in this kind of situation in the first place. But it didn’t matter how many times Mick told himself these things over and over. His partner was still gone. Leonard Snart died a goddamn hero so that his team could live. He left Mick behind. He left Mick and Caitlin behind.

Mick knelt before the stone that he and Caitlin had put up. There was no body to bury, of course, but Mick found some peace in coming here and talking to his friend, his partner, his lover. He wasn’t doing much talking today though, he’d run out of things to say.

Caitlin stood a few feet behind him, watching him. She had made a small flurry just for them. Mick found it oddly appropriate to honor the man who called himself Cold. Mick felt cold now, he had since he woke up on the Waverider to realize Lenny was gone and there was no bringing him back.

He’d made Rip take him back to Central as soon as they defeated Savage. The team didn’t feel so much like a team anymore. He felt like a true outsider for the first time since he met Lenny all those years ago. He needed to find where he belonged again. He needed to go home to Caitlin. He just wasn’t sure how he would tell her Lenny wasn’t coming home.

She hadn’t taken it well. He knew all about what happened with Ronnie. She’d made them both promise when they left to go on Hunter’s stupid mission that they’d both come home to her. It wasn’t the only promise Lenny had broken.

Mick let Caitlin cry herself to sleep in his arms that night. He couldn’t bring himself to cry. He felt like he should, like he needed to, but the tears wouldn’t come. Instead anger rose inside him, hot and wild like the flames he adored so much. It wasn’t the anger he was used to though, the anger that comforted him over the years. That anger was quick to ignite and violent and he used it to serve his criminal purposes, or some sexual ones. Instead this was different, more of a numbing rage. The anger came in waves and left him feeling hollow and empty.

“Are you ok?” she asked, laying a hand on his shoulder. Her voice pulled him from his memories.

“Ok?” he asked, his voice harsh, but fragile.   “How can I be ok? My partner is gone. He blew himself up. For what?”

“You know for what,” she said firmly. “So you could live. So you could come home to me.”

“Idiot,” he deadpanned. “He should have just left me there. He should have been the one to come home to you.”

“Then I would be here having this exact same conversation with him instead of you,” she shot back.

“Yeah,” he said angrily. “He left us both behind.”

“Both of you consider yourself so expendable, but I don’t,” she said, matching his anger. She knew he wasn’t really trying to argue with her. This was his way of dealing with his grief, anger, but it was making her angry. Neither of them had ever understood what they meant to each other or what they meant to her. “Neither of you are expendable to me. But he’s gone now and we have to carry on, you and me.” She choked out the last part. The flash of anger was gone now, leaving her colder than she normally was.

Mick’s anger didn’t dissipate though, he just felt angrier. More betrayed that one of the two people that meant the most to him in the whole world thought that he could live without him. It pissed him off knowing that that was how Caitlin felt about him too and he had tried to do the same exact thing. God damn it!!!

Mick stood up quickly with a roar, “How could you just leave us like this? Didn’t we mean anything to you? You promised…” He fell back to his knees with a choked off sob. The tears he’d avoided up to this point flowed freely down his cheeks. He continued in a whisper, “You promised it’d always be you and me. That we had each other’s backs. You promised after Chronos you’d never leave me behind again.” He pounded his fist into the ground and wished he’d brought the heat gun with him. Caitlin had made him promise to leave it at the apartment. She knew him too well. He sat there, bloodying his knuckles on the ground until he had nothing left. Until the burst of rage fuled energy dissipated and he was left, numb, hollow and broken again. It wasn’t the first time he’d take his emotions out with his fists and it wouldn’t be the last. Somehow hurting himself physically helped. It always had, just ask to see his burns.

“Come on,” she whispered, pulling him up gently by his arm. “Let’s go home. We can light the fireplace and have cocoa with mini marshmallows.” Mick just nodded and let her lead him away from the grave and back to her car.

The car ride home was silent, Caitlin focused on the drive and Mick stared out the window. It was a quick ride and before Mick knew it Caitlin was opening his door, pulling him from the car and bringing him up to their apartment. She helped him shed his coat and boots and led him to sit on the bed in front of the fireplace.

Caitlin handed him his heat gun, “Go on,” she whispered. “I know you want to.” She didn’t even give him her normal warning not to burn the place down. He lit the wood in the fireplace and if he let the flame of the heat gun a little longer than needed, well Caitlin wasn’t going to judge. When he was done she took the gun back and went to the kitchen to make the cocoa. Just the way Lenny liked it.

When she got back Mick had stripped down to his boxers and laid down in what was Lenny’s spot on the bed, curled around his pillow. She stripped herself down to a t-shirt and panties and climbed in beside him. She rolled him over and sat him up against the headboard before handing him his cocoa. They sat in silence sipping their drinks and staring at Mick’s fire. Caitlin would never admit it, but she could see the beauty Mick saw in it. Just like she could see the beauty in Lenny’s ice.

“He’s really gone,” Mick whispered, after what seemed like an eternity. Caitlin nodded sadly. “He’s never coming back.” Caitlin carefully shook her head, no. “What am I supposed to do now?” He turned to look at her, his eyes wide and empty. It was a scarier look than any of the manic faces he made when he played with fire or hurt people (who deserved it of course). He truly looked like a broken man.

Caitlin didn’t know the answer to that. What were they supposed to do? What was she supposed to do? How were they ever going to get through this? How could they ever be ok again? The same questions she asked herself after Ronnie died. But she made it through that.

“I don’t know,” Caitlin whispered honestly, cupping his cheek. She took the mug of cocoa from him and set it on the dresser before she pulled him into her arms. “But you aren’t alone. I’m here with you. I’m not leaving you. We’re in this together. We just have to find a way…” she couldn’t bring herself to say _to move on._

“Caity,” Mick whispered as he hid his face against her neck and cried silently. He couldn’t bring himself to speak the words _I love_ you, but he hoped she knew. He hoped Lenny had known. They’d never been ones for feelings or grand gestures, but he hoped he knew. He had to. Mick was pretty sure Lenny had felt the same way.

“Shh,” she whispered. “I know. I love you too. And so did he.” Mick clung to her as if she was grounding him to this world. She supposed she was. She had no doubt that if Mick hadn’t had her to come home to, he wouldn’t have come home at all. He’d have thrown himself into the first dangerous situation that came along and gotten himself killed too. A shiver shot up her spine at the thought. She squeezed him tight and rubbed circles into his back, trying to comfort him, herself, both of them

Mick sobbed quietly into her shoulder as they both lay there in their bed that felt so empty. There were no more words to be said tonight, only tears to be shed that were long overdue. Caitlin made a vow that she wouldn’t let this kill them. She would get them through this, both of them, somehow.

Mick cried like he couldn’t remember crying in years. He hated it, hated that Caitlin had to hold him together. He hated that Lenny would have told him to chill out and pull himself together. But Mick wasn’t Lenny. He couldn’t put on the Cold persona and be “ok”. Mick let his emotions rule him; he just wasn’t used to being sad and lost.

He cried until the tears wouldn’t come anymore and he just breathed in Caitlin’s scent. She smelled like winter, piney and sharp like Lenny, but with a mix of smoke, like him and a soft vanilla. She smelled like the three of them and that was comforting for now. He stayed that way until he fell asleep in her arms, still lost, but safe.

Caitlin didn’t move Mick when she noticed he’d cried himself to sleep. She cuddled him closer to her, comforted in the feel of his strong arms and the heat of his body. He needed her to be strong now. She couldn’t break on him, wouldn’t. She would be his rock, like Lenny had been.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> This was heartbreaking to write, but it demanded to be written. Please don't hate me!! I promise I won't leave it like this!! Sorry it's so short and kind of spastic, but it felt simple, raw and right this way.


End file.
